Moving to the Treasure Coast to Fish: Why Anglers End Up Living Here (2026)

Sep 28

Quick answer: If you fish, the Treasure Coast is one of the best places in the country to live. Stuart has been the Sailfish Capital of the World since the 1930s, the Gulf Stream runs about 10 to 12 miles off the St. Lucie Inlet, and there are four inlets in about 60 miles of coast. Inside the beach, the Indian River Lagoon holds snook, redfish, trout and tarpon, and Lake Okeechobee's bass fishing is a 40-minute drive west. A resident saltwater license is $17 a year and shore fishing is free for residents. Ocean-access canal homes start in the $600,000s in Port St. Lucie, deepwater homes near the inlet in Stuart run about $850,000 and up, and there are gated communities with private marinas at every price above that.

I get a version of this call every month. Somebody up north has a boat, a garage full of rods, and a spouse who is done with winter. They want to know whether the Treasure Coast is a real fishing town or just a Florida town with fishing in the brochure. It's the real thing. Stuart has an 18-foot bronze sailfish in the middle of its main roundabout, Port Salerno started as a commercial fishing village and still smells like one, and half the trucks at the Publix on a Saturday have a trailer behind them. Here's what the fishing life actually looks like if you move here, and where the people who fish tend to buy.

The fishing at a glance

Offshore	Gulf Stream about 10 to 12 miles off the St. Lucie Inlet. Sailfish, mahi, kingfish, wahoo, cobia, blackfin tuna, snapper, grouper, swordfish at night
Inlets	Sebastian, Fort Pierce, St. Lucie (Stuart) and Jupiter, north to south, all within about an hour of each other
Inshore	Indian River Lagoon, 156 miles long, about 700 fish species. Snook, redfish, sea trout, tarpon, jacks, flounder, sheepshead, pompano
From shore	Jetties at all four inlets, causeway piers, the surf on Hutchinson Island. Free shoreline license for Florida residents
Freshwater	Lake Okeechobee 31 miles west of Stuart on SR 76. Stick Marsh, Headwaters Lake and Blue Cypress near Fellsmere for trophy bass
Seasons	Sailfish peak December to March on cold fronts. Mahi April through summer. Snook open February to May and September to mid-December. Something is biting every month
Cost of entry	Resident saltwater license $17 a year. Snook permit $10. Registration on a 16 to 26 foot boat about $35 a year. Half-day offshore charter roughly $600 to $1,000

Why Stuart is the Sailfish Capital of the World

The title isn't marketing that somebody made up last year. In January 1938 the editor of the Stuart News, Ernie Lyons, invited a group of northern sportswriters down and put them on the Whiticar charter fleet. They released more than a thousand sailfish in a little under a week, one of the writers said Stuart ought to be called the world capital of sailfish, and the name stuck. The Stuart Sailfish Club was chartered in 1941 and pioneered the gold release button and the red release pennant that tournaments everywhere use now. The city made the slogan official in 1957. The club's Light Tackle Sailfish Tournament runs every December, the 73rd is December 16 to 19 this year, and the Pelican Yacht Club Invitational Billfish Tournament out of Fort Pierce every January is one of the oldest on the coast.

The reason it works is geography. From the St. Lucie Inlet the Gulf Stream is roughly 10 to 12 miles out, and the stretch of water from Fort Pierce down past Stuart to the Palm Beaches is called Sailfish Alley for a reason. The fish migrate south along it from December into March, and the coldest, roughest mornings after a front are usually the best ones. That's winter here. It's also not only winter. In July 2026 several Stuart boats had double-digit sailfish days in 50 to 90 feet of water, which is a summer bite most places would kill for.

The rest of the offshore calendar runs like this. Mahi from April through the summer. Kingfish in spring and fall, cobia March to June, wahoo and blackfin in the cooler months, mangrove and mutton snapper on the reefs in 70 to 120 feet all summer, grouper deeper, and swordfish at night for the people who want to work for it. Sebastian has run a Swordfish Shootout every August since 2021. Fort Pierce hosts a King Mackerel Invitational in April and the Fishing Frenzy dolphin tournament in May. Martin County alone has more than 95 artificial reef sites, and they keep adding to them: in November 2025 the county sank the Borocho, a 227-foot freighter, in about 200 feet of water nine miles off the inlet. St. Lucie County has more than 50 reefs of its own and Indian River County has eight offshore, with the debris from the old Sebastian Inlet bridge slated to become more.

Four inlets in about 60 miles

This is the part people from other coasts don't appreciate until they live here. Most of Florida's Atlantic side has an inlet every 30 or 40 miles. We have four in an hour's drive, and each one fishes a little differently.

Sebastian Inlet is the northern one, inside a 755-acre state park. The north jetty is open 24 hours, the catwalks under the A1A bridge are famous for night snook from May to October, and the tarpon in June through August are the kind you lose more than you land. The state started replacing the A1A bridge over the inlet in June 2026 and the work runs into 2032, so part of the north lot is closed. The fishing isn't.

Fort Pierce Inlet is the working one. The south jetty is reached through Fort Pierce Inlet State Park, six dollars a car, deep water and granite, and it holds snook all year. The north jetty is off Pepper Park. The charter fleet and the party boat work out of the city marina downtown, and the Stan Blum ramp is right at the inlet with four lanes and about 50 trailer spaces. In May 2026 the new 85-foot fixed North Bridge opened, which ended a couple of generations of waiting on a drawbridge to get to the ramp.

St. Lucie Inlet is Stuart's, and it's the one with the reputation. Where the inlet channel meets the Intracoastal and the Okeechobee Waterway is called the Crossroads, and it shoals faster than anywhere else on the waterway. Current averages two to three knots and can run a lot harder. Local boats treat it with respect, and so should you. It's also the closest of the four to the Stream, and the Manatee Pocket and Port Salerno sit right inside it.

Jupiter Inlet is just over the county line. The lighthouse has been there since 1860, the sandbars move, and the Loxahatchee River behind it is a snook and tarpon fishery of its own. Hobe Sound buyers use Jupiter as often as they use Stuart.

The lagoon, and the fish that live in it

The Indian River Lagoon runs 156 miles down the inside of the barrier islands, and Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch puts the count at about 700 fish species, which makes it one of the most biologically diverse estuaries in North America. It's the reason you can fish on a 25-knot east wind day when nobody is going offshore. Snook are the headliner, from the inlets in summer to the docks and bridges in winter. Redfish are around all year and best September through November. Sea trout fish from fall through spring on the grass flats, flounder show up October through January, sheepshead stack on the bridge pilings in February, and tarpon roll in the inlets and the Pocket from May into October. The fall mullet run, September into October, is when the whole lagoon goes crazy at once.

Two things a newcomer should know. First, the snook rules. On the Atlantic side in 2026 the season is open February 1 to May 31 and September 1 to December 14, closed the rest of the year, with a slot of 28 to 32 inches, one fish per person per day, and a $10 snook permit on top of your license. Second, the lagoon's health. It had a bad decade. The good news is that seagrass coverage in the lagoon grew from about 24,500 acres in 2023 to about 42,100 acres in 2025, a 72 percent gain in two years, though it's still well below where it was in 2007. The bait is back, the flats are greening up, and the fishing has followed. Lake Okeechobee discharges into the St. Lucie Estuary are the thing to watch, and as of late September 2026 they were at zero.

No boat? You'll still fish more than you do now

Florida gives residents a free shoreline saltwater license, which covers fishing from the beach, jetties, piers and bridges. You still need the snook permit to keep a snook. The surf on Hutchinson Island gets a pompano run from late February into April, with a second push after the first cold fronts in October, plus whiting, bluefish and Spanish mackerel behind the fronts all winter. Martin County allows fishing on all of its public beaches. For piers, the Jensen Beach Causeway pier and the 725-foot pier at Indian Riverside Park are the easy ones in Martin County, Sandsprit Park has two, the Fort Pierce jetties and the Sebastian catwalks are the serious ones, and Juno Beach has a 990-foot ocean pier that's being refurbished in stages through the end of 2026. Party boats run out of both Stuart and Fort Pierce if you want to go offshore without owning the boat.

Bass fishing 40 minutes west

Lake Okeechobee is 31 miles from downtown Stuart on State Road 76, and it's the lake that made Florida bass fishing famous. The St. Lucie Canal connects Stuart to the lake by water, and the Okeechobee Waterway keeps going to Fort Myers, 154 miles coast to coast, which means a Stuart boat can fish the Gulf side without going around the Keys. Up north, out past Fellsmere, the Stick Marsh and Farm 13 (6,500 acres, catch and release for bass) and Headwaters Lake (10,000 acres, more than 100 bass over 10 pounds logged in the state's TrophyCatch program) are two of the best trophy largemouth waters in the country, and Blue Cypress Lake and Kenansville Lake are right there with them.

Where fishermen actually live

This is my part of the job. The question isn't just waterfront or not. It's how far you are from the inlet, what's between you and it, and whether you keep the boat at the house, in a slip, or on a trailer. Roughly from least to most expensive:

Trailer boat, any neighborhood	Most of the Treasure Coast. Each county has roughly 17 or 18 public ramps. Port St. Lucie lets you keep a boat in the garage, on the paved driveway, or to the side or rear of the house, but not in the front yard or swale, and the city tightened its parking enforcement in 2026. Unincorporated Martin County is more relaxed about trailers on residential lots. Check the HOA before you buy, because plenty of gated communities ban visible boats entirely
Sebastian, Micco, Barefoot Bay	The cheapest waterfront on the coast. Sebastian's waterfront median is around $375,000 and Barefoot Bay's canal homes around $215,000, close to Sebastian Inlet and the Fellsmere bass lakes
Port St. Lucie ocean-access canals	Canal homes off the North Fork of the St. Lucie River with docks and lifts, mostly $600,000 to $900,000, some to $1.6 million and above. It's a long, slow ride down the river to the inlet, often an hour with the idle zones, but you're on the water every day for the price of a dry lot in Stuart
Fort Pierce and Indian River Drive	Old Florida waterfront on the lagoon, about $650,000 to $1.45 million on South Indian River Drive, with the inlet minutes away. North Hutchinson Island houses have a median near $500,000
Palm City	Wide St. Lucie River frontage, $600,000 to $1.7 million for most waterfront listings, big lifts. Read the bridge section below before you buy here
Rocky Point and Port Salerno	Deep water, no fixed bridges, a few minutes from the inlet. Rocky Point listings ran about $850,000 to $1.4 million in early 2026, St. Lucie Inlet Harbor about $875,000 to $2.5 million. Non-gated, and every third house has a center console on a lift
Sewall's Point	The peninsula between the St. Lucie River and the lagoon. Waterfront estates $2 million to $10 million and up, median list price about $1.7 million
Vero Beach island	Barrier island single-family median about $1.5 million. The Moorings has 7.5 miles of bulkheaded shoreline with riverfront homes from about $1.5 million to $4 million

If you'd rather have a slip than a seawall, a handful of gated communities here have their own marinas, and I've written a guide on each one. Harbour Ridge in Palm City has 98 slips for boats from 27 to 62 feet. Piper's Landing has 49 slips up to 80 feet. Sailfish Point has 84 slips up to 100 feet plus dry storage, and it sits right on the inlet. Loblolly in Hobe Sound has about 75. Ballantrae in Port St. Lucie has 67 slips for 35 to 50 foot boats on the North Fork. Harbour Isle at the Fort Pierce Inlet has 63 floating slips. In Vero, Grand Harbor and the Moorings both have marinas and yacht clubs. The full list of gated communities is in the gated communities guide.

For a slip without a gate, Martin County has more than 20 marinas. Sunset Bay in downtown Stuart has 198 slips and 69 moorings at about $16 a foot per month on an annual contract. The Vero Beach city marina charges $16 to $18 a foot per month for a slip and $20 a foot for dry storage. Loggerhead Riverwatch in Stuart has 283 dry-stack spaces, Fort Pierce City Marina has about 240 wet slips downtown, and Harbortown in Fort Pierce has 172 more.

The bridge question

Every buyer with a boat over about 30 feet needs to hear this before they fall in love with a house. Almost every fixed bridge on the Intracoastal here is 65 feet: the Roosevelt and Evans Crary bridges in Stuart, the Jensen Beach and Ernest Lyons causeways, the Fort Pierce South Bridge, the Wabasso, Barber and 17th Street bridges in Vero. If your boat clears 65 feet, the coast is open. The exceptions are on the St. Lucie River west of downtown Stuart. The Palm City Bridge is a 54-foot fixed span, and the century-old Florida East Coast railroad bridge downtown sits at about six and a half feet when it's closed. It stays open unless a train is coming, and since the Brightline trains started running there's been a running fight over how long it closes. The rule since September 2025 caps daytime closures and the replacement bridge, which would open the channel to about 17 feet 9 inches closed and roughly double the horizontal clearance, got a $79 million federal grant in August 2026, but nobody has announced a completion date. So: a Palm City waterfront home is a wonderful thing for a boat that fits under 54 feet and a captain with patience. A sportfish with a tower belongs east of the railroad bridge, which is why Rocky Point, Port Salerno, Sewall's Point and Sailfish Point cost what they cost.

What it costs to be a fisherman here

Licenses. Resident saltwater $17 a year or $79 for five years. Freshwater is the same, and the combo is $32.50. Snook permit $10, lobster permit $5. Under 16 and residents 65 and over don't need a license. The shoreline license is free for residents.
Registration. The state fee on a 16 to 26 foot boat is about $35 a year with the add-ons, and about $84 for 26 to 40 feet. Martin County adds a county fee; St. Lucie and Indian River don't.
Bringing a boat from out of state. Florida charges use tax on a boat brought in within six months of buying it, with credit for tax paid to the other state. The state caps the sales tax on any boat at $18,000, which is why big boats get bought here. Have your tax person confirm your situation before you trailer it down.
Flood insurance. The average federal flood policy runs about $841 a year in Martin County, $616 in St. Lucie and $972 in Indian River, but those are averages across every house. A canal home in an AE zone commonly runs a few thousand a year, and oceanfront in a VE zone more. Get the elevation certificate and a quote before you write the offer.
Docks and lifts. Figure $15 to $60 a square foot for a dock and $2,500 to $35,000 for lift equipment depending on capacity, plus install. A single-family dock under 1,000 square feet usually qualifies for a state exemption, but Martin County still requires its own permit for any dock or lift, and a seawall replacement is a real number, so inspect the one that's there.

The rest of the boat life

Port Salerno is still the commercial fishing village it started as in the 1920s, with the fish houses on the Manatee Pocket and a handful of restaurants where the dock is the parking lot. Chapman School of Seamanship has been teaching captains in Stuart since 1971. The Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center on Hutchinson Island is 57 acres of what's actually living in the lagoon, and Fort Pierce has both Harbor Branch and a Smithsonian marine station, which tells you how seriously the science people take this water. Bass Pro Shops has a store and a boating center on Gatlin Boulevard in Port St. Lucie, West Marine is in Fort Pierce and Vero, and every town has a bait shop that opens before dawn. The Stuart Boat Show fills the downtown waterfront every January, with more than 200 exhibitors, and Fort Pierce does Friday Fest on the marina the first Friday of every month and a farmers market on the water every Saturday. Hurricane season is June through November, and it's the tax you pay for all of the above. 2026 was a quiet one.

Tell me what you fish for

That's the first thing I ask, because it decides where you should live. A sailfish guy with a 38-foot sportfish and a guy who throws a fly at redfish from a skiff should not be looking at the same houses, and a family with a pontoon and a trailer shouldn't pay for either. I live here, I fish here, and I know which canals silt up, which HOAs will make you hide the boat, and which docks were built before the permit rules changed. Call or text me and tell me what's on the boat. I'll tell you where it fits.

Questions anglers ask about moving here

Is the Treasure Coast good for fishing year-round?

Yes. Sailfish peak from December through March along Sailfish Alley off Stuart and Fort Pierce, mahi run from April through the summer, snook fish all summer at the inlets, redfish are best in the fall, and the winter fronts bring pompano, bluefish and Spanish mackerel to the beaches. Lake Okeechobee and the Fellsmere bass lakes fill in whatever the ocean doesn't.

How far is the Gulf Stream from Stuart?

About 10 to 12 miles off the St. Lucie Inlet, closer than almost anywhere else on the East Coast outside the Palm Beaches. The stretch from Fort Pierce to Palm Beach is known as Sailfish Alley, and Stuart has called itself the Sailfish Capital of the World since 1938.

Where should I buy a home on the Treasure Coast if I have a boat?

It depends on the boat. Ocean-access canal homes in Port St. Lucie start in the $600,000s but are a long river ride from the inlet. Rocky Point, Port Salerno and Sewall's Point in Stuart have deep water minutes from the St. Lucie Inlet with no fixed bridges, starting around $850,000. Palm City is beautiful but sits behind a 54-foot bridge and the railroad bridge. Gated communities like Harbour Ridge, Piper's Landing, Sailfish Point, Ballantrae and Harbour Isle have their own marinas.

Do I need a fishing license to fish from the beach in Florida?

Florida residents can get a free shoreline saltwater license that covers fishing from beaches, jetties, piers and bridges. You still need the $10 snook permit to keep a snook. Fishing from a boat requires the regular $17 resident saltwater license. Children under 16 and residents 65 and over are exempt.

Can I keep a boat in my driveway in Port St. Lucie?

Generally yes, on a paved driveway, in the garage, or to the side or rear of the house, but not in the front yard or the swale. The city passed stricter parking enforcement in 2026, and many HOA communities ban visible boats and trailers altogether, so check the rules of the specific neighborhood before you buy.

Talk with William. William fishes these waters and sells the homes on them. He can pull waterfront listings by inlet distance and bridge clearance, tell you which HOAs allow boats, and get you a slip or dry-stack quote before you commit. Call or text (772) 800-2274 or send a message.

General information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Fishing regulations, seasons, fees, prices and bridge schedules change; confirm current rules with FWC and current prices with the marina or association. William Merchant, REALTOR®, RE/MAX Gold. Each RE/MAX office is independently owned and operated.

Sources

William Merchant